Elderly retirees comprise a growing population of potentially footloose consumers whose residential choices have important implications for the localities and regions in which they choose to settle. Certain counties presently are experiencing noteworthy influxes of elderly newcomers, and others may be verging on such growth. This study focuses on counties as units of analysis. Its objectives are: (1) to develop a new set of analytical measures for studing the elderly population's annually changing distribution between 1965 and 1977; and (2) to identify county characteristics associated with these changes. The major emphasis will be on explaining why elderly Americans are becoming more concentrated in certain counties and elucidating the demographic processes by which these changes are occurring. This study will be based on published and unpublished tabulations from Social Security Administrative records, showing the number of elderly beneficiaries, by age and sex, for every U.S. county, annually from 1965-1977. The rationale for this study derives from both the theoretical deficiency regarding elderly migration and the strengths of the data to be used. Theoretically, the research will advance our understanding of migration by elucidating: (1) consumption-oriented forms of migration (of which elderly migration may be only one), and (2) the chracteristics of places that are associated with attractiveness to, or retention of, the elderly. The data on which this study will be based provide a unique annual time series, spanning an era of rising consumption-oriented migration during the 1970s and with which the changing concentration of elderly persons in specific counties can be followed year by year.